"Sugar, Sugar": The One That Started It All?

What's your favorite song? Mine's "Sugar, Sugar." You know that song, right? It's pretty awesome, isn't it? It probably won't surprise you to hear that it topped the charts both in America and in the UK when it was released in 1969--but did you know that Billboard ranked it as the #1 single of the entire year? So, it beat out all singles released in 1969 by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Jackson 5 and Stevie Wonder, for instance. When I was in high school I used to spend a lot of time riding around in my friend Jason's car, listening to 104.3 (which used to be an oldies station) on his disintegrating car stereo. Invariably "Sugar, Sugar" would come on at some point in the day, and we would turn it up and rock out. Back then we used to joke that "Sugar, Sugar" was the first indiepop song because the simple chord progression (C Major--F Major--G Major), the fuzzbox lead guitar, and the amateurish-sounding female vocal interjections reminded us of the songs on the 7 inches I had ordered from Slumberland and the Bus Stop Label. Actually "Sugar, Sugar" was the opposite of amateurish; it was written by Brill Building mainstay Jeff Barry, who also penned "Be My Baby," and (yes the sleeve of my copy of End Of The Century confirms he also wrote) "Baby, I Love You." Ellie Greenwich, Barry's partner in writing "Baby, I Love You" didn't help write "Sugar, Sugar"--but is one of the studio musicians who performed on the record. I could have guessed all of this stuff, but what I had no idea about is that The Archies, who "perform" "Sugar, Sugar" are the characters from Archie Comics, who somehow sang Brill Building pop songs on I guess a TV show. So that's why they didn't tour.

I Fucking Dare You To Buy Tender Forever's Wider

My prediction that women will start dressing like butch lesbians to attract men has already come true, and, although I knew it was going to be hot (check out the picture), I wasn't ready for this. Yesterday when I dropped by Reckless Records on the way home from the Loop I was thrilled to find a copy of Tender Forever's new LP Wider. K Records has been repping Wider pretty hard on its website recently, and I vowed to buy a copy after visiting the act's myspace page and being confronted with the cover of Justin Timberlake's "My Love" that plays as soon as the page loads. It might cause an involuntary roll of the eyes to see a K act categorize itself as "Soul" on its myspace page, but take my word for it: the tag is appropriate.

Tender Forever is the stage name of multi-instrumentalist Melanie Valera. Valera's music career started in a girl group cover band (ironically, that would be the ideal culmination of the music career of my dreams) in her native Bordeaux, France. So, like The Softies or Black Tambourine, Valera's songwriting is largely informed by Phil Spector-like compositions. But this isn't the late 80's, and Wider isn't that kind of K record. The fact that Valera lists Cody Chestnutt among the brief list of influences on Tender Forever's myspace page and the fact that she would cover a Justin Timberlake song conclusively shows that she is totally dedicated to soul and the institution of the love song and that she is perfectly willing to subvert counterculture expectations to maximize their effect. So she dances, flirts, (reportedly) gets emotional on stage, uses a drum machine--whatever it takes. And she musters up quite an amount of swagger, but the really compelling thing here is the vulnerability. Here is a person with apparently little musical training who is going to walk onto a stage, set up a laptop and start dancing and singing her heart out about love. And in true DIY fashion, all of the fragility, the awkwardness, all of the vulnerability just make the record more sexy.

I believe in the love song as an institution, like, say, Elvis Costello does. If you must know, last night I put on headphones and listened to The Ramones' cover of Phil Spector's "Baby I Love You" six times in a row before going to bed. But Valera's songs are even more about love than your typical love song; they're about finding a secret place in the back yard to kiss, about how fast your heart is beating and about how "like war," broken hearts last forever. They're about how even if you break my heart I'm willing to take all of that pain for the chance to be in love with you for just a little while. You know, I don't think I've ever heard any woman besides maybe Diana Ross talk about her "heart" as much as Valera does. Hearing the word repeatedly as I listen to this record sort of puts me in a trance, and by the fifth time I hear it I just want to fuck.

So, everybody agrees that independent records are a great way to learn things by example, right? The counterculture is overflowing with all kinds of people who learned how to dress or how to play guitar or to run a distro or that they should be anti-colonialists or anarchists or vegetarians or whatever just from listening to records. But here's a record that may actually inspire you to do something that matters in your life. And that's the powerful thing about this record--the thing that might have you on edge when you listen to it--because it might actually change you, or give you an ultimatum. Because Melanie Valera may actually get in your face, dance around and tell you that if you're not taking a big chance, then you're not actually in love right now.

Published December 2007. $10 if ordered directly from K Records.

www.kpunk.com

P.S.: Here's a Spanish language review of Wider from a blog called Fuck Me I'm Twee.

AEM Bargain Bin Selection #2: The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem's In Person At Carnegie Hall

$0.49, Reckless Records. My friend Brendan's family is so Irish that I learned about The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem while sitting around the dinner table at their house. Put simply, this act is the gold standard when it comes to recording artists of Irish folk music, and the record of their 1963 concert in New York was a breakthrough record with regard the entire genre for American listeners. I was shocked to find this admittedly scratched up copy neglected in Reckless's bargain bin, and thrilled to listen to it's anthem in celebration of the IRA and what must be an unusually ribald rendition of Galway Bay. And, of course, it's even more fun to listen to it after a few drinks.

AEM Bargain Bin Selection #1: Soft Cell's Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret

Reckless Records, $1.99. You may think that New Wave, the gay dance club scene and MDMA are out of fashion, but they're probably all on the verge of a huge come-back. Still that's not enough to get Reckless Records to move Soft Cell's first and best album from the bargain bin back into their normal stock. Soft Cell was formed in 1980 by Marc Almond and David Ball after the two met at Leeds Polytechnic Fine Arts University. Born of the New Romantic movement in British pop, the band was branded as part of the futurist pop scene embodied by bands like The Human League and OMD. But Soft cell's schtick had a decidedly darker tone that struck a chord with what became the Goth scene. Soft Cell's first LP, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret is an unapologetic sleezefest, right from the sleezy, neon-lit title--its subject matter consisting exclusively of the glamorization of an obscene, drug-addled nightlife and the mockery of those too square to partake in it. Soft Cell's career was quite short-lived--much like most of their New Romantic-era peers, I guess. The band is basically known for its hit cover of "Tainted Love," the controversy over the photographs used to promote its "Sex Dwarf" song/concept, and its over-use of MDMA. That, however, doesn't mean this album doesn't kick ass! Happy bargain-binning!

A Modest Proposal: Kill Your iPod.

Yesterday I went record shopping with my friend B. He took me over to Lake View to go to Grammaphone, and then we went down to Dusty Groove. To be honest, I haven't really gone record shopping in a long time. Like in four years. I've mainly been getting my music either by researching sort of ironically obscure British pop groups that sound like the Style Counsel and buying their CDs used through Amazon for like $1.99, or by taking stuff from my friends' iTunes. At first I found the record shopping experience to be monotonous. And even when I did find something interesting, I found myself wanting to be able to consult wikipedia to make sure it was worth buying. I stood somewhat bemusedly as B. made use of one of the many beat up Technics 1200 MK2s, briefly listening to each of his potential selections--what a painstaking way to decide whether to buy something, right? How old-fashioned.

Maybe an hour into our browsing at the second record store, my attitude made a 180. As I flipped through the weathered, slightly mildewed used LPs at Dusty Groove I was overwhelmed by how many great options there were--and even more by how many of them I would have never considered listening to, how many of them I was totally unaware of. These weren't particularly obscure records; and they were of genres that I know something about. Oh, shit: I've never even heard an EPMD song. I didn't even know about this Paul Chambers album, and why did I never buy Coltrane's Lush Life in high school? Huh; I don't own any Cat Stevens records--weird. I selected three jazz LPs for which I would pay retail price, then I turned to the rather extensive bargain bin. I selected about 10 more LPs from the bargain bin--almost all of which were albums that I would have paid full price for. I was stunned. And as I thought about what happened that day, I decided that the practice of treating iTunes as my primary source of music for several years fucked me really bad. Ten years ago I was the kind of kid who would spend a total of 20 hours scouring every record shop in London just to find a Marine Girls album (true story). By the time I was in my 3L year in law school, I didn't even set up my stereo or unpack my CDs and LPs, because I assumed that the 500 or so songs on my iTunes would be enough for any scenario.

Today I spent most of the day organizing my record collection. The jazz LPs I bought yesterday had given me a little record collecting fever, and I wanted to take stock of what I had to make sure I didn't buy any duplicates. I was surprised in several ways by what I found, for instance: (1) I don't have nearly as many albums as I thought I had. I mean, not all of them are here; some of them are at my parents' house or in boxes, or whatever--but come on; I have like 40 jazz albums in my bed room. What the fuck is that? I have more Stooges albums than Cannonball Adderley albums, and I don't even like The Stooges. What's even worse is (2) I have tons of really good albums that I haven't listened to in like 7 years--or maybe not at all--apparently just because I never put any tracks from them on iTunes, and then I forgot I had them. We're talking like four star albums by my favorite musicians. Everything But the Girl, Kieth Murray and shit.

In short, iTunes has seriously fucked up the way we experience music. It's turned music into a totally ephemeral (not to mention value-less) thing that we experience in only the most compulsory way. And it's given us musical tunnel-vision, making us forget about the myriad possibilities there are, beyond what's presently available on Lime Wire. Today it dawned on me in a new way exactly how rewarding it is to stand by that old 1200 MK2 spinning a slightly scratchy LP; how human it is to be able to hold that LP, write your name on the slip cover with a Sharpie next to the name of the person who owned it before you; how rich of an experience it is to listen to a song in the context of the album it was written for, rather than in the white, iTunes vacuum. If this is starting to make any sense to you, I implore you, go to a bargain bin and buy whatever Peter Paul and Mary LP you can find for 50 cents, listen to it popping on your record player, and think about how decades ago people enjoyed music in a way you haven't in years. It's going to sound so much better than your iPod shuffle.

Ten Albums That Changed My Life

More than a year ago, I posted a bulletin like this on myspace, and I enjoyed putting the list together so much that I decided to reconstruct it (it has long been deleted by the myspace elves) and post it here.

1) Huey Lewis And The News: Sports--the first album I enjoyed listening to.

2) Young MC: Stone Cold Rhymin'--the first album I ever owned.

3) Janet Jackson: Rhythm Nation--the first album I ever bought with my own money.

4) Nirvana: In Utero--the first album I anticipated so anxiously that I bought it on the day it was released.

5) Stereolab: Mars Audiac Quintet--the first album that made me want to be in a band.

6) The Velvet Underground & Nico--the first album that made me feel like I could understand exactly how it was performed.

7) John Coltrane: Giant Steps--the album playing the first time I kissed a girl.

8) The Cannanes: Short Poppy Syndrome--the album playing when I totalled my mom's car.

9) Screaching Weasel: Kill The Musicians--the first (and only) album I was ever disciplined for possessing.

10) The Minutemen: Double Nickels On The Dime--the first album in a decade to make me feel like music can matter.

8 Diagrams Release Date Set

The Wu-Tang Clan is set to release their new LP 8 Diagrams on November 12, 2007. Music press is going crazy because the Wu is going to cover "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," with George Harrison's son Dhani Harrison in tow. Sounds like bullshit to me!

Virginia's Premier Grind-Core Band Publishes New Album

I wish I could offer you an informed review of Phantom Limb, the very ambitious new LP by Pig Destroyer. But I am no purveyor of metal myself, so I can only give you my tentative impressions. I looked Pig Destroyer up after learning its name from the menu of Kuma's Corner, Avondale's local metal bar/gourmet hamburger joint. I found that the band was very highly regarded, and that the members had chosen the band's name as a slightly sly way of implying that they like to rough up cops. Intriguing. I noticed that they were slated to release a new album this June, and, accessing the cover artwork, I was stunned at how well the subtle, high-concept artwork had been executed. Plus it had titties. I went and picked up the new album at Permanent Records down on Chicago Avenue (fuck Reckless, who hadn't gotten any copies in yet). I listened to the album, which runs about a half an hour twice yesterday, and...I...like it...I guess? For someone not particularly well versed in this stuff, it kind of just sounds like some really well-disciplined musicians are mimicking a garbage disposal. The rhythms alone offer much to explore and enjoy, but I do find them somewhat difficult to process, since I have no fucking clue what the drummer is doing. The lyrics are fun--but I'm surprized how little doom and malice are to be mined from them. I thought I was paying for a whole CD full of songs about kicking cops' asses and killing grade school kids. You guys are supposed to be really good at this, can we step up the evil a little bit? I was dissappointed by certain points in the record where I felt the tenor of the songs did not live up to the strength I expected the album to project, such as parts where the lyrics amounted to whiny sentiments, and the one song that is basically just a break-up song thinly veiled in clearly insufficiently evil doom rhetoric. Finally, the decision to add a fourth musician to the ranks of this erstwhile trio, credited simply for "noise" is total bullshit, guys. In sum, I am enjoying the album with a critical eye on this band, of which I sense we could expect more.